Knights of the Dinner Table #168 has a very warm write-up for Happy Birthday, Robot! and small story games in general. Many thanks to contributor and fan Ashok Desai for the kind words. Here are some of them!

"Now this game is just charming. It was floated as a concept on the Internet and financed through fundraising site Kickstarter, but flew to such astounding success and gained so much support that it's now available in many places in a startlingly attractive hardback.[...]

"There's no character ownership at all, any player can write sentences about anyone in the story solong as it makes sense. The resulting tales tend to come out rather like those cheerful, thick-paged children's books found in all good nurseries, not least because you're operating under an often draconically strict word limit. That's not a criticism though. The limit is good. It makes you try harder.[...]

"All in all it makes a pretty good manual on how to introduce the very young to the wonderful world of role-playing, without any of the confusing trappings that have grown up around the hobby. Furthermore, the illustrations are cute, friendly, colourful and numerous, and the rules are easily simple enough for ten-year-olds and even younger kids[...]

"Besides, you can always subvert it to other causes if you feel the need. One enterprising Internet pundit even ran a game in the Batman universe, titled 'Happy Parole, Joker!' Funny how sinister the childlike effect of the prose can be when placed in a contrastingly adult context."

Thanks again, Ash!

Here's a fun fact: My first published game material was in another Kenzer & Company publication: Hackjournal, the official magazine of their AD&D homage Hackmaster. Small world, no?